Droom raises $30 mn funding led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation

New Delhi: Online automobile marketplace Droom on Thursday said it has raised USD 30 million (around Rs 2,032 crore), led by Toyota Tsusho Corporation and Digital Garage of Japan.

Toyota Tsusho Corporation is a part of Japanese auto maker Toyota Group.

The series D round also saw participation from Ellison Investments, an Asia-based investment manager, as well as many existing investors and institutional investors and family offices from China, Hong Kong and South East Asia, Droom founder and CEO Sandeep Aggarwal told reporters here.

He added that with this round, the company has raised about USD 95 million (around Rs 6,437 crore) till date.

"The funds will be used to further strengthen our operations in India as well as expand to South East Asian markets like Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam among others," he added.

Besides the funding, Droom also inked an agreement with Toyota Tsusho Corporation that will help it expand internationally.

The company will invest USD 8-10 million towards international expansion, he said, adding that its India business would continue to account for over 90 percent of its revenues for the next two years.

"The Indian market continues to hold great potential. As per estimates, the auto market (including vehicle sales and after-sales services like servicing and insurance) is expected to be about USD 350 billion in size by 2022 with 6-8 percent being online," he said.

Asked if the company was looking at an IPO, Aggarwal said it is on the company's radar.

"We will look at listing when we get to a net revenue of about USD 100-110 million. While we have a net revenue of about USD 16.5 million, we are expecting strong growth and with international expansion on the cards, we see us going for the IPO by end of 2019," he said.

He said the company is generating close to USD 700 million in gross revenue with the listed gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 3.5 billion on its platform.

Founded in April 2014 in Silicon Valley, Droom is an online marketplace to buy and sell new and used automobiles and related services.

In July last year, Droom had raised USD 20 million (around Rs 130 crore) in Series C funding led by Integrated Asset Management and Digital Garage. That round had seen participation from Lightbox, Beenos and Beenext.

Prior to that, it had raised a seed funding of USD 1.5 million and USD 4 million in May and October 2014, respectively, followed by Series A round of Rs 100 crore in June 2015.